Awards and Honors
Housing's Totally Vegan Veggies Win Praise
Berkeley's office of Housing and Dining Services has won a 1995 VAMMY award from the North American Vegetarian Society for its totally vegetarian dinning hall offerings.
"These no-cholesterol, completely vegetarian menu items allow students to remain true to their health, ethical and environmental ideals," said the society.
A year ago, students in the dining halls organized a push for total vegetarian, or vegan, meals. This meant offerings containing no meat, no fish, no poultry, no dairy and no eggs.
The Housing and Dining staff responded with such meals as curried garbanzo seasoned with garam masala, cilantro and fresh ginger root and black bean chili with fresh Anaheim and jalapeno peppers.
"Right now we are testing a recipe for African sweet potato stew. Testing a recipe is fairly complex, due to the large volume we prepare. There is still a bit of work to be done on calculating the quantities of spices," said Nancy Jurich, associate director of Dining and Conference Services.
Berkeley's residence halls serve 9,000 meals a day and 8 to 20 percent of the students now select vegetarian choices offered at each meal, said Jurich.
Berkeley won the 1995 VAMMY Award for consumer responsiveness from The North American Vegetarian Society, based in Dolgeville, N.Y. The society is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to promoting vegetarianism.